Tonight looks frosty with some light freezing fog & lows -1 to 12 (coldest in the far west & southwest) with light to calm wind.

With a southeast to south-southwest breeze & sunshine, highs Friday should run 31-37, followed by 20s Friday night with light freezing fog & frost & increasing high clouds.

We should completely cloud up Saturday with strong southeast wind at 15-30 mph.  By 6 p.m., highs should reach 35-38.

However, as precipitation moves in & falls through the dry air, we should see evaporative cooling drop temperatures back to 31-33.

Between 4 & 7 p.m., a band of precipitation should develop in our southwestern counties & rapidly spread northeastward.  It may begin as a few rain drops, then go to sleet & wet snow.

Models seem to not know what to make of the deep snow pack in Iowa & northern Illinois & then the snow pack from Kansas to North Carolina, which is leading to a hodge-podge of snowfall total projections. To add further complication is the fact of any deviation in track or degree of evaporative cooling or push of warmer air will lead to rapid forecast tweaks right up to timing of event.

So............hereare the current thoughts & projections.........

Sleet & snow may go to brief freezing rain in a complicated set-up of evaporative cooling & warm air trying to overcome that cooling aloft by riding over the colder air nearer to the surface.  Increasing rain is the trend Saturday night-Sunday.

Rain may end as some snow Sunday.

If the system tracks farther south, there will be a much longer duration of snow or all snow.  This would mean less recovery from the evaporative cooling as the wind will be more easterly than southeasterly or south-southeasterly.

With the current track snow to some ice to rain ending as snow seems reasonable as temperatures rise from 31-32 to 36-41 by Sunday with strong south to southeast wind gusting 30-40 mph at times before turning to the northeast, then north to northwest.  Temperatures should fall to 30-33 in the afternoon.

Stay weather aware & watch for frequent updates as even a 40 mile difference in track will result in different duration of precipitation types.  A 100-mile track difference to the south would put much of the area in all snow with +6" amounts.

My current thinking is that the heaviest band should still occur from near Davenport, Iowa to Chicago, Illinois to South Bend, Indiana to near Cleveland, Ohio with +6" amounts.

Note the sharp cut-off in totals expected here.

This is what is currently expected (but again, be weather-aware for possible tweaks & shifting higher or lower):

Fountain County:  Less than 1"

Warren County:  1" or less

Montgomery County:  1.5" or less

Tippecanoe County:  1-2"

Benton County:  1-2.5"

White County:  1.5-3.5"

Carroll County:  1.5-3.5"

Clinton County:  1-3"

Howard County:  2.5-5"

Cass County:  3-5.5"

Miami County:  3-6"

Fulton County:  4-6"

Pulaski County:  3.5-5.5"

Jasper County:  2.5-6"

Newton County:  2.5-4.5"

Monday looks partly cloudy with highs 30-36 with lows 17-22, followed by mostly sunny to sunny skies & 30-36 Tuesday with light to calm winds.  Lows will run the 18-25 range with south wind commencing Tuesday night..

With 37-46 Wednesday with strong southerly wind, 40s to 50s are possible by Thursday with rain & strong south-southwest wind gusting to 35 mph.